SHFE nonferrous metals rose across the board on Friday, as market sentiment was rallied after China’s Ministry of Finance pledged to make an early allocation of the special-purpose bond quotas for transportation infrastructure construction. 

Social inventories of lead ingots in China continued to trend downsides this week, but the decline slowed down from a week ago due to rising supplies of secondary lead.

Crude oil prices jumped on Thursday, following their biggest-ever quarterly losses, as US President Donald Trump said he expected Saudi Arabia and Russia to reach a deal soon to end their oil price war.

The impact from the coronavirus pandemic on China’s aluminium exports is mounting as greater part of the world comes under lockdown to stop the spread of the virus. On Wednesday, Vietnam, a major buyer of Chinese aluminium, entered into a 15-day period of nationwide isolation. Residents are required to stay at home and can only go outside for “essential needs,” such as food, medicines, urgent medical services or to go to work at companies permitted by the government to remain open.

Shanghai base metals opened mostly higher on Wednesday morning, as Beijing said that it will roll out a set of fiscal and financial policies to expand domestic demand, assist businesses reopening, sustain employment, and help all types of businesses to weather this difficult time.

Zinc inventories in China continued to fall over the weekend, propelled by declines in east and north China where downstream consumers were keen to make purchases. SMM data showed that social inventories of refined zinc ingots across Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shandong and Hebei stood at 304,000 mt as of Monday March 30, down 3,000 mt from Friday March 27 and 20,000 mt from Monday March 23.

SMM data showed that stocks across eight consumption areas in China, including SHFE warrants, decreased 3,000 mt from last Thursday March 26 to 1.664 million mt as of Monday March 30.

Inventories of steel rebar across Chinese steelmakers and social warehouses fell for the second consecutive week as of March 26 on the back of improved downstream purchases. However, the overall inventories remained significantly higher than the same period after the Chinese New Year holiday last year, which threatens some downside risk in spot rebar prices. SMM expects the overall inventories to return to levels of the previous year only around mid-May.

Inventories of aluminium billet in China fell for the third consecutive week as of March 26, due to stable deliveries and reduced arrivals.

Social inventories of long steel (including wire rods and rebar) in Guangzhou fell 4.24% in the week ended March 25 to 2.3 million mt, 25.49% higher than the same period after the Lunar New Year holiday last year, showed SMM data.